• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 2, 2009

A high school student in Michigan and a California resident have sued Amazon for remotely deleting copies of George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their Kindles.

"With an uncanny knack for irony, Amazon recently remotely deleted any traces of certain electronic copies of George Orwell's '1984' and 'Animal Farm' from customers' Kindles and iPhones, thereby sending these books down Orwell's so-called 'memory hole,'" they allege in the potential class-action lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court in Washington.

The readers argue that Amazon violated its contract by removing the books. Amazon's user agreement says that consumers who purchase e-books are buying the right "to keep a permanent copy" of the material. The Kindle users also allege that Amazon's actions violated a federal computer fraud law and a Washington consumer protection law, and amounted to a form of trespass. The Kindle users, represented by the law firm KamberEdelson, are seeking class-action status. News that the lawsuit was in the works was first reported by Online Media Daily two weeks ago.

Last month, Amazon decided to remotely erase copies of the Orwell books and refund the purchase price after learning that the books had been added to its catalog by a company that didn't have the rights to them. But while the deletions might have helped limit Amazon's potential exposure to copyright infringement damages, the erasures also proved to be a public relations fiasco for Amazon. Within a few days of the deletions, CEO Jeff Bezos publicly apologized on an Amazon forum. "Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles," he wrote.

Student Justin Gawronski alleges in the lawsuit that he had purchased "1984" in order to complete a summer homework assignment. Gawronski asserts that he made "copious notes" in the book, but that those remarks are now worthless. "A note such as 'remember this paragraph for your thesis' is useless if it does not ... reference a specific paragraph," he alleges.

But some legal experts say that the Kindle users could have a hard time convincing a judge that they suffered any financial loss, given that Amazon refunded their money.

"At the end of the day, I feel like there aren't a lot of money damages you can point to," cyberlaw expert Venkat Balasubramani says. "Everyone feels it's inappropriate," he says of the deletions. "But I don't know that it's going to add up to a cognizable claim in court."